MKSO(8)                      System Administration                     MKSO(8)

NAME

       mkso - maintain manual page source links

SYNOPSIS

       mkso [ -dhv ] [ -Hdir ] datafile

DESCRIPTION

       Manual  pages will often document more than one program, subroutine, or
       topic.  When this occurs, it is normal to create "links" for each docu‐
       mented program or subroutine to the original manual page.  For example,
       the getcwd(3) manual page also documents getwd(3).   Assuming  both  of
       these  functions are described in the file man3/getcwd.3, then the file
       man3/getwd.3 would consist of the single line

            .so man3/getcwd.3

       This would result in the same manual page being shown  for  both  func‐
       tions, without duplicating the manual page.

       While  these  source  link files may be maintained by hand, doing so is
       tedious for large distributions, such as the GNO base distribution.

       mkso was written for the GNO base distribution to automate the creation
       and  deletion  of these source links.  By default, mkso will create the
       links relative to the  current  directory  as  specified  in  datafile.
       datafile must have the following format:

            # Any blank line or line that has a "#" in the first
            # column is a comment and is ignored.
            #
            # Pathnames must be delimited by "/", not ":".
            #
            # There are two columns here, delimited by spaces or tabs.
            # The first is the "real" manual page (no check is done
            # to verify that it does in fact exist).  The second column
            # is the source link that will be created.
            #
            man2/alarm.2   man2/alarm10.2
            man5/utmp.5    man5/wtmp.5
            #
            # This next one cannot be created on a ProDOS volume; see
            # description of the -H flag.
            #
            man2/getpgrp.2 man2/_getpgrp.2


       mkso  does not create missing directories; the current directory should
       already contain the subdirectories man1, man2, man3, man4, man5,  man6,
       man7, and man8.

OPTIONS

       -d     Delete  source  links  rather  than creating them.  Source links
              will only be deleted if they contain a "magic number"  which  is
              inserted during link creation.

       -h     Print usage information and exit.

       -H dir If  the source link does not follow ProDOS filename conventions,
              then the link will be created in  the  directory  given  by  dir
              rather  than  the current directory.  dir is presumably a direc‐
              tory on an HFS volume.  The link itself will reference the full-
              rather  than  partial-pathname  of  the  original  file, so that
              man(1) will be able to locate the original page.

              As with the default behavior, mkso does not  create  subdirecto‐
              ries,  so ensure that dir already contains the same list of sub‐
              directories as the current directory.

       -v     Verbose operation.

VERSION

       This manual page documents mkso version 1.0.

AUTHOR

       Devin Reade, 1997.

SEE ALSO

       man(1), nroff(1)



GNO                            21 December 1997                        MKSO(8)